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Parshat Vayishlach records the meeting between Yaakov (Jacob) and his
brother Esav, and the preparations Yaakov made in case Esav was still angry
with him for stealing Esav's blessings. Yaakov split his camp and decided to
move his family to a distant place. When he goes back to get the last of his
belongings, the Torah tells us that he wrestled with a 'man', which
commentaries tell us was the Satan (the evil inclination). When the angel
realized he couldn't defeat Yaakov, he struck his hip, injuring Yaakov, but
Yaakov wouldn't let the angel leave until he blessed him. Then the Torah
says that he blessed him, but doesn't tell us what the blessing was. What
was the blessing? Furthermore, what was the significance of hitting Yaakov's
hip, making him limp from then on? Lastly, we know that angels can only be
assigned one job per trip. If so, how could the angel fight Yaakov AND bless
him? One answer could explain all these questions as follows: The angel,
representing Yaakov's evil inclination, wrestled with him, but not for the
purpose of hurting him. The whole point of wrestling is to defeat your
opponent without necessarily causing actual physical harm. In effect, the
Satan "struggled" to get Yaakov to give in to his temptations, but when he
realized that he couldn't win, he resorted to physically injuring Yaakov.
Why? Injury can potentially be used as an excuse for Yaakov to not perform
certain commandments, since now it would be harder for him to walk/perform
them. However, because of this injury WE are forbidden from eating the sinew
that the angel hit, and that's exactly the blessing that the angel gave
Yaakov: What could have been used as an excuse for NOT performing a Mitzvah
(positive commandment), has itself BECOME a Mitzvah! Because of Yaakov's
pain we now have a chance to perform another commandment by not eating that
sinew in animals. So the angel's sole job was to give Yaakov this blessing,
but Yaakov had to first turn it from an excuse to a blessing! We learn a
very valuable lesson from this incident: True greatness is only achieved
through adversity. Whenever we reach a challenge in our lives, we should
remember not to use it as an excuse, but as a stepping stone to reach the
next challenge, and even greater heights!